The Internet has emerged as a powerful advertising tool. It is commonplace to see advertisements on many web sites. For example, advertisements may be displayed on search web sites and may be targeted to individuals based upon search terms provided by the individuals. Other web sites, such as news and sports web sites, may provide space for advertisements. The owners of these web sites may sell advertising space to advertisers to offset the costs associated with operating the web sites as well as to turn a profit.
Before serving an advertisement to a host web site or in response to a search query, a large number of advertisements are ranked to determine which advertisements are the most suitable. Ranking typically involves analyzing parameters associated with each of the advertisements to find the best fit. Owing to the large number of advertisements, the parameters of the advertisements are typically stored in a mass storage device, such as an array of hard drives, which can exhibit high latency when reading and writing data. The high latency ultimately results in an increase in the amount of time needed to serve an advertisement.